What's interesting about trauma (GONNA BE A REAL FUN KEEPING UP WITH THE KARDASHIANS RECAP EVERYONE) is that when people recount traumatic stories, they often feel compelled to point out how well things were going before tragedy struck. "We were just driving along listening to Christmas music!" or "It was such a beautiful day!" It's evidence of how our brains have to struggle in order to process the reality that horrible things truly can happen randomly, out of nowhere.

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That's the way the Kardashians talk when they tell the story of Kim being held at gunpoint in Paris — they emphasize that before everything went wrong, the trip was lovely. It's Kourtney's first trip to Paris for Fashion Week, the family's being dressed by Balmain and Givenchy, Kendall's walking in a big show, and Kanye's even flown in to help Kim with her looks. Let's not discuss the fact that when Kanye does take a day off of his tour to offer fashion tips, he's wearing what appears to be a very old Champion brand crewneck sweatshirt.

It's weirdly suspenseful to watch them merrily make their way through Paris, even though we already know exactly how the story ends. (First time I've ever gotten an anxiety stomachache from a KUWTK episode!) But about halfway through, the episode finally starts piecing together a narrative of the attack, and it's pretty comprehensive. That's impressive, given that I don't think KUWTK was technically in production when the family went to France. What we're given is a blend of some professional camera work, but also self-shot footage, tabloid photos and headlines, and video from Kanye's documentary crew. (Isn't Kanye's documentarian basically a teen with a camcorder from the 1990s? Regardless, he does an excellent job.)

It feels weird to recount Kim's story of the attack after Kim made it so clear that she wanted to tell the story herself, and after it turns out tabloid reports got a lot of the details right, but: men dressed like French policemen in masks broke into her Paris apartment. They held her up at gunpoint. She thought she was going to be raped. She thought she was going to be killed. She didn't know enough French to plead with her attackers and explain that she has little kids. (Realistically, they probably already knew.) She prayed that Kourtney would have a normal life if she were the one to discover her dead body. They took her ring and left her in the bathroom, and she survived. I am defensive of Kim Kardashian to a fault and I readily admit that, but this was objectively brave and honest and, given the number of people who are victims of violence and feel they can't talk about it, kind of heroic. Don't @ me.

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Kim can and does name a few increased security measures she could've taken (an armed guard at her room, not Snapchatting so many details about plans and locations). But it's admirable that Kim does not apologize for that. Nothing about this is Kim's fault. It takes some victims of trauma years to understand that, and I'm glad Kim's already found a way to accept that reality.

Kim shares the main details of the attack in her in-the-moment interviews, but we also see the way the rest of the family reacts. Kris is devastated and breaks Kim's "no crying in front of the kids" rule. I'm no Kris Jenner apologist, but it's heartbreaking to hear the story of how she raced to Kim's side with her favorite blanket, as though she could wrap her in it and undo the attack. Kourtney and Kendall spend a lot of time processing how close they were when the attack happened — they were out at a bar that was less than five minutes away. (Kim's bodyguard was at the club with them, rather than at home with Kim.) It's scary for all of them to think about what might have happened had they come home when the attackers were still there. Kanye says, point-blank, "[The attackers] knew if anything had really happened to you, I wouldn't have stopped until they were dead," which feels dark, but who can fault him for going straight into Taken-mode? But while I respect doing whatever you need to do to get by during a loved one's hard time, it's a bit strange that unless I missed something, Kylie doesn't appear in the episode at all. Even Rob makes a brief FaceTime cameo, and Khloé comes back from Cleveland as soon as she can.

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The best thing about Kim deciding to tell this story in, essentially, her own words is that we get to see which part of the story matters most. It's not the attack itself. Even as she's in the middle of telling the whole story to Khloé and Kourtney for what seems like the first time, she stops in the middle, sighs and, in true Kardashian fashion, mutters, "Whatever." Those details aren't the most important thing. Instead, the episode closes on home footage of Kim and Kanye together, holding Saint and North and watching them play. It's nostalgic and sweet and a little sad, too. Of course it matters that Kim was attacked. Of course. But it's clear what matters more to her is she survived.